1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus, an operating method, and a non-transitory computer readable medium. More particularly, the present invention relates to an image processing apparatus in which it is possible to check occurrence of a region of a clinical finding of a symptom of a patient body in a medical diagnosis and also evaluation of the clinical finding, and an operating method and a non-transitory computer readable medium.
2. Description Related to the Prior Art
An endoscope system is well-known in the field of medical instruments, to perform imaging of an object in a body cavity of a patient body. The endoscope system includes an endoscope and a processing apparatus. The endoscope is entered in the body cavity, and outputs an image signal of an image obtained by imaging the object. The processing apparatus produces a diagnostic image of the object according to the image signal, and outputs the diagnostic image to a monitor display panel.
In the diagnosis by use of the diagnostic image, it is important for a doctor to detect whether there is a tissue region corresponding to plural clinical findings (clinical presentations) predetermined initially, and how the clinical findings are evaluated. For example, the diagnostic image of gastric mucosa is used to detect occurrence and a score of evaluation of each of the clinical findings according to the Kyoto classification of gastritis, such as diffuse redness, map-like redness and intestinal metaplasia, so as to check whether the region has a characteristic of chronic gastritis created by infection of Helicobacter pylori. Also, the diagnostic image of a colon polyp is used to detect a penetration depth of a colon cancer by classifying the colon polyp in one of the plural clinical findings of a pit pattern classification, such as Types I, II and
U.S. Pat. Pub. No. 2015/339,817 (corresponding to JP-A 2014-166298) discloses the processing apparatus in which the colon polyp is classified in plural clinical findings in the pit pattern classification according to a feature value or similarity score related to a reference pattern predetermined initially, and enhancement of color (color mapping) is performed according to a result of the classification. This is effective in appropriately performing the diagnosis, as the classification of the clinical findings is automated and a color mapped image is displayed according to the result of the classification.
In the diagnosis by use of the diagnostic image described above, the efficiency of performing the diagnosis may be improved by appropriately understanding the evaluation of the clinical finding in addition to detecting occurrence of the region corresponding to the clinical finding. However, U.S. Pat. Pub. No. 2015/339,817 does not disclose evaluation of the clinical finding even though the occurrence of the clinical finding corresponding to the region is recognized.